A clay tablet inscribed with one of the first known proper names in history sold at auction. It dates to 5.1 ka BP. and is engraved in the archaic Sumerian pictographic script dubbed Uruk III. The topic of this administrative record is beer production.
Tag: beer
Brewing vs Winemaking
wine making is a much less controlled process and doesn’t care about oxygen as much, instead relying on additives. this may change, however.
Beer Industry
In July 2018 I made a poster illustrating the connections between breweries. I’ve expanded and updated it a few times since then, both thanks to people who have commented with suggestions and because big breweries haven’t stopped buying smaller breweries. Below is the most recent update. As always let me know if you see anything incorrect, but please include a source confirming it.
Cross-organelle response
The problem with serial repitching has beer makers and cell biologists scratching their heads. Clearly, something about the fermentation process is making new generations of yeast less able to ferment. But what? Heat shock response is a complex process because cells are capable of making 1000s of different proteins. But only a subset of these proteins are expressed at any one instant, and the subsets differ inside each organelle in the cell. So maintaining the function of these proteins—proteostasis—requires a complex signaling mechanism that switches on the relevant genes in each organelle. This switching process must be coordinated across the cell, since organelles depend on each other. The process of communication and coordination is called cross-organelle response, or CORE, and it is poorly understood. But this is an important emerging area of cell biology: biologists are beginning to realize that CORE plays a crucial role not just in heat shock response but in metabolism in general, and even in processes such as aging.
New York Breweries win
7 New York state breweries, including 1 in New York City, took home medals at this year’s Great American Beer Festival in Denver this weekend. Barrage Brewing Co. in Farmingdale, Community Beer Works in Buffalo, Great South Bay Brewery in Bay Shore, Gun Hill Brewing Co. in the Bronx, Heritage Hill Brewhouse & Kitchen in Pompey, King’s Court Brewing Co. in Poughkeepsie, and West Kill Brewing in West Kill all scored wins in the 33rd annual edition of the competition, which featured nearly 9500 beers from nearly 2300 breweries across the country in 107 categories. This was New York’s best showing at the festival since 2013, when the state’s breweries also won 7 medals.
Evil Twin taproom
“The taproom experience is getting more and more important in this competitive market. While you could 5 years ago open whatever taproom and people would show up just because it was a brewery, it’s not the case anymore. You have to make it attractive for people to come out not just for the beer, but something else also.” Thus, the taproom is housed in a glass-enclosed greenhouse designed by architecture firm Kushner Studios, filled with wooden picnic tables and stools around the bar that seat 76. There will be programming like live music, and a basement room will be used for film screenings and other events. A coffee shop with Sey Coffee will soon open at 7:00 so people can make use of the space all day, and a speakeasy-like cocktail bar is also on the horizon. More picnic tables sit outside for 185 people, as will rotating food trucks.
History of light beer
Chemist Joseph Owades, working for Rheingold Breweries in New York City, broke apart beer’s long carbohydrate chains to produce the world’s first “light” beer in 1967. Marketed nearly exclusively to diabetics, it went nowhere. Thus, the development of “light” beer came with a commensurate marketing challenge: how to persuade the traditionally masculine beer-drinking audience to try a lower-calorie version of their favorite brew.
The Skyline Project
6 New York City-area breweries shipped off to London to pour at the city’s marquee craft beer festival and brew 6 collaboration beers with 6 London breweries. They’re calling it The Skyline Project, and it’s a first-of-its-kind Transatlantic collaboration that releases in September in the UK.
featuring kcbc, of course.
Sixpoint Gowanus
Sixpoint Brewery announced plans for a 2K m2 brewery and taproom in Gowanus, Brooklyn today, their first significant expansion in the city in their 15-year history. The space, which will be at the intersection of 9th Street and 2nd Avenue in the shadow of the MTA’s Culver Viaduct that carries the F and G Train from Carroll Gardens into Park Slope. The space is planned to open in Spring 2020.
Brewer Emergency Kit
Whether you are a homebrewer or a craft brewer, things don’t always go as expected or something breaks. If you aren’t ready, it could cost you a batch or delay a brew. In the worst case scenario a company can go out of business, making a replacement part difficult and expensive to procure. More than once we haven’t had a (seemingly) small inexpensive thing and it caused issues. Learn from us (and chime in with your own suggestions)!
Gregor J. Rothfuss 